After Kelvin Gastelum failed to make the welterweight limit on two separate occasions, UFC president Dana White had enough and ordered the Ultimate Fighter 17 winner to move up to 185 pounds. After just one fight in the new division, a successful one against seasoned veteran Nate Marquardt, Gastelum is now back to 170 pounds. The only thing he needed to do was promise the UFC brass that he will make the weight this time.
"I see myself as a future welterweight champion," he told GNP1.de. "I feel like my place, my heart is in the welterweight division. I hired a nutritionist, I'm doing all the right things. You know, everything should be smooth for this fight camp."
Gastelum will meet Matt Brown in the Ultimate Fighter Latin America 2 Finale in November. The crux of the matter: George Lockhart, the nutritionist Gastelum "hired", was in fact hired and paid for by the UFC, which Gastelum revealed in a recent interview on UFC.com. Understandably, Matt Brown took an issue with that and took to Twitter, where he named and shamed what he believed to be a "conflict of interest".
@UFC pays for his nutritionist? Conflict of interest? Gonna need more than chicken and broccoli to beat me anyway. https://t.co/GNPAe2LenQ
— Matt Brown (@IamTheImmortal) September 14, 2015
Approached about the subject, Gastelum seemed to be a bit uncomfortable. However, he didn't fail to lash out a verbal potshot in Brown's direction.
"I never heard Matt Brown complain about anything, I never heard him complain about anybody. Who knows what his mentality is," he said. "He might be making up excuses for the fight, who knows?"
Gastelum und Brown are set to meet November 21 in the main event of the TUF Latin America 2 Finale at the Arena Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico.
Get the latest gear
